liverpool

 

hi everyone!!! 

i havent written in a while so to bring you all up to speed here is a quick update. ive been in Liverpool, England for 16 days now having arrived on april 16th after traveling for 24 hours by planes, underground and then the train from London to Liverpool. its a tiring journey and its only one hours time difference. i definitely felt gipped, because there wasnt even the excuse of jetlag and time change to blame for my exhaustion. but a good nights rest and i had more energy by morning. 

i will be in Liverpool for the next 3 months as i am taking a community health course through the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. its a rather highly esteemed school here in the UK, as it is the oldest tropical medicine school in the world....older then the London one by 6 months and has been in existence since 1898. one point of interest is that it has a snake lab on the top floor that contains over 200 poisonous snakes from around  the world. here the milk them and send the venom to labs where the make anti-venom by injecting it into horses and then every 3 months they take 6 litres of blood for 3 days to get the plasma inorder to mix it with something (IgG) ... dont ask i dont know...Heather may be able to answer that question...to create the anti-venom. its all fresh in my head because one of my fellow students had a connection with someone that works in the snake lab so we got a tour today. so i spent an hour admiring and trying to  provoke the spitting cobras to spit, and the vipers to strike...at the plastic containers they are housed it. it was quite interesting! sorry  no pictures, of either the snakes or of Liverpool. i havent pulled the camera out yet! though i should! 

i am posting another write up on Rwanda just after this one...so enjoy that as well. 

cheers!